


Dog Days Are Over

by welldam



Category: Margin Call (2011)
Genre: M/M, mostly talk and internal monologues tbh, vague sex description
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 03:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2372768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welldam/pseuds/welldam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A confession and complicated feelings. Takes place the night before the beginning of the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dog Days Are Over

_It's complicated._  
That's about as closely as Sam Rogers could try and explain his relationship with John Tuld, his boss. If asked about it, Sam might use words like associate or just call it a professional relationship.

And if that was the case, it would have been simpler.

"Friend" would be a word much more sparingly used, and the word didn't ring true to Sam. He couldn't really picture a context where he would call John a friend.  
But the fact was that aside from Sam's family, his relationship with John had been the longest of his life. It had outlasted his marriage, something that still stung Sam, months and months after the fact.

So what he had now was this.  
John had showed up at Sam's apartment and, to be honest, Sam wasn't sure if he himself had invited John in some roundabout way or whether the man just decided to come by himself. It didn't really matter. John was there, and Sam wanted...to not be alone, basically.

"So what's with her?" John asked while he was helping himself to a drink.  
He was referring to Ella, Sam's dog, lying on her blanket on her side.

Sam took a while to answer, unsure if he wanted to open that can of worms.

"She's ill."

"So it seems."

"I'm taking her to the vet tomorrow."

John returned to the couch where Sam was seated and handed him another drink. Sam took it without even turning to look at the man.

"I know she's old, but it still surprised me."

John took a sip.

"I wouldn't know too much about that- I've never had a dog."

_Or anything, really._ Sam added in his head. During the 30-some years of association that he and John had had, the man had never been married, nor had he been in a similar long term relationship. He had no children either, and Sam couldn't remember if he had ever talked about other family.

_Well, technically,_ Sam thought before he could stop himself, _John has had a long term relationship._

And what a strange relationship it was, indeed.

That was around the time when Sam became aware how close John had sat. It was strange that he hadn't noticed it earlier, since their legs were touching, but he supposed he had gotten sort of used to John doing that.

Sam nudged a little further away to regain his space.

There wasn't anything very remarkable in their small discussions, until John leaned back , and with a nostalgic smile, made a remark that struck a cord (with a two-by-four).

"Did you know that back in the day everyone thought that you and I had an affair?"

Sam spilled his drink on his shirt.

"What?"

"Before you were married."

"Who thought that?"

"People. There were rumors going around."

"I never heard any."

"Well, they wouldn't say it to your face."

"You knew about it. "

"Yes, I did."

"And it didn't occur to you to disprove them?"

"And how would I go about doing that? 'I'm not fucking Rogers, stop talking about it'? Yes, I'm  
sure that would go down very well."

John gestured as if to say 'I can't believe you won't see this as mere misunderstanding the way I do.'

"Besides, those rumors died very soon after you started seeing--"  
He made a deliberate pause and Sam sighed.

"Mary. You know it's Mary."

"Yes, her. So really, that sorted itself out."

Sam scoffed.

"You don't see a disconnect here?"

"Probably not the same one you do."

Sam got up and went to fetch himself another drink. While he was pouring it, John leaned forward and looked up at him.

"Rather unfair rumor in my opinion, considering I never once had you."

Sam stopped.  
He wasn't sure if he was hearing this right.

"Not that there weren't chances for that. Remember back in-"

Sam turned around and lifted his hand, interrupting John.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm saying that we never had sex. We could-"

Sam lifted his ring finger.

"I think you're barking up the wrong tree here."

"A divorced tree."

John scoffed and Sam fell quiet.

John realized reasonably fast that that had been kind of a low blow, and made a sort of twisty face to correct himself but as it seemed to him, Sam was already mad.

Sam clenched his fist and gave John a look that John was certain he had seen before. _Resignation, exhaustion and disappointment._  
John felt sick.

"I'm-"

Sam interrupted him and John looked up and Sam's eyes looked like deepest pools of hardly constrained anger (not to mix metaphors). Sam looked away and spoke, quietly, and he sounded fast and tired:

"You're terrible. Awful, I want you out of my house. Right now."

It was quiet once more and John made an awkward move as an half-hearted attempt to leave, but Sam stopped him again.

\---------------  
Sam Rogers is ten thirteen nineteen years old and watches television and there's an ad where a girl puts on lipstick and then there are boys and she looks to the camera and exclaims  
Isn't it FUN to be wanted?  
and she smiles and winks but the only thing Sam remembers the only detail is the sound of that  
and it echoes in his head now, over and over in different volumes.  
Isn't it FUN to be wanted?  
Isn't it FUN to be wanted?  
Isn't it FUN to be wanted?  
\----------

 

"Do you- why do you think that."

It wasn't really a question, but it demanded an answer.

John looked at him and Sam couldn't look at him at all, not in his eyes, nowhere, and he was swimming in dark waters grasping onto anything.

John was too close now and Sam didn't know what he even was feeling. John felt that maybe this was the moment when he should/could finally say words out loud.

"Sam,"

John began and hated how his voice was shaky. The words had been inside him all this time but now they were in pieces and he couldn't remember sentences any longer. It was all buzzwords and a lot of those and John was struggling to find the meaning he knows must exist.

"Thirty-five years, Sam. "

He kept repeating Sam's name, and it felt like it was all he remembered then, when Sam was right there and John's hands sweat and shook and felt prickly just under the skin. He hated it and his heart was racing in tempo with his mind and he felt lost. It's a terrible desperation that John was experiencing because he felt that if he couldn't say it right that minute Sam would never be close enough again. So he must, he absolutely had to-

So John got just a little bit closer and Sam closed his eyes. John was hoping, against every odd, that when Sam would open them again, and really looked at John, he would see something new.

"It was always you, Sam" John choked out and _it's like he got that lump out of his throat, because he is going to take Sam's hand and pull him to sit down with him and words spill out of him, millions of words at once and maybe his brain's badly wired or something because he doesn't know if he still makes sense. And John wants to speak until there are no more words. He wants to force out every single feeling and describe how it feels to be so numb with want that you feel like bursting out from your seams. He wants to explain the inexplicable feeling of stars aligning within himself and how fucked up it is to not be able to even say it out loud, not even to himself, and everything falling apart._

"Always you, and all these years, and I- there was moments and I could have said, I could have done something, but then she- and I didn't. I wanted to, I wanted you but there was nothing-I don't think I know how to stop this anymore, Sam, I think it's who I've been as long as I remember, it was this-- LONGING, and you have to understand, do you, Sam, I want you, I lo-"

Sam stopped him by putting a hand over John's mouth. He didn't particularly want it but he had to put a stop to that because he didn't like all these words. John looked like a deer in headlights, something Sam himself has once seen, years ago.

Sam spent approximately 3.5 seconds in silence, just thinking and then put his hand down. John breathed out and in. Sam steeled his expression. John looked down looking like he's on the verge of words.  
But then Sam stopped him anyway.

"What are you doing to me, John? What exactly did you think would happen? What do you think will happen now? Do you think I’m so alone I'll fuck you?"

John hesitated to say anything to it, because he felt he couldn't talk himself out of it, so he gave Sam a look that he hoped said _I'm sorry I fucked up_ but it seemed to say instead

_well, are you?_

As it turned out Sam was.

John placed his hand on the back of Sam's head leaning him down. He pressed close and lingered his lips to Sam's, reconstructing the moment in his head- picturing this moment differently. Young John indulging in a moment, kissing young Sam, young, unmarried, still bright browed Sam. A moment worth having between them, not peppered with regret, repression and failure.  
This was what he wanted to think.

Sam, however, wasn't as fond of thinking at the moment, so he kissed John. Powerfully.  
Sam thought it was strange. He hadn't kissed anyone in a long time and anyone but Mary in an even longer time. Not to mention he was kissing a man, something he hadn't had too much experience. But mostly jarring was the fact that it was John. His boss, his fair weather friend, his accomplice.

His John. That would be the one definition that would work.  
Just his John. Unchanging in his chaos, unyielding in his versatility.  
Messy, (un)fortunate and solid as a rock on a cliff. Standing proudly but with a clear risk.

Speaking of standing proudly.

_Wow, okay- we really are going to fuck, aren't we?_

The question was in the air.

"Don't make me beg", John asked, quietly.

Sam said nothing, and it took less than a second for John to react to it.

"Please," John said.

Sam nodded.

He wasn't sure what to think of the apparent hardness against his thigh but he felt absolutely certain that he was going to do this.  
So he slid his hands down to John's waist and opened the clasp of the belt, tearing his trousers open.  
John made a small sigh and Sam answered it.  
John was talking again.

I love you, I love you- he said, breathlessly. He could finally say it, and it made him feel like he couldn't say it enough.

Sam didn't want to say many things to that so he kept sort of agreeing with it- sort of saying "yes, I understand," while struggling to get rid of too many clothes.  
The word did stop him for a while. "Love". It twisted him on the inside when the gravity of the word hit him , _love love love for how long how hard how much because no one could love him for that long_ but he couldn't stop to think twice or to ask or to speak, because John was right there and now and REAL and Sam could touch him and that hasn't happened in months. And Sam considered the fact that if he were to ask about John's feelings at the moment, there'd be more words and no touches and frankly, his head couldn't handle another burst like that when he could be touching someone else's skin.

Sam broke free from the half-embrace and lead John to the bedroom, mind hazy and his skin hot and a pounding pulse in his ears.

He sat on his bed, fumbling with his clothes until he realized that John was standing in front of him. Sam stopped there, looking up at him, really, really looked at him.  
And maybe for a fleeting second Sam felt like nothing had changed in thirty five years and this was the same moment that when John had joined Sam on the roof (where Sam never went these days any more) and they had stood there together and laughed- god how long ago was that, a lifetime ago, and they had been painfully young and too rich and just there, and maybe if John had kissed him then, this wouldn't be the reality they're in.

They stayed like that for a while and John looked at him with compassion darkened with desire.  
He wasn't sure what this meant. This felt so very first- in it's strange, fumbling ways but the mood didn't leave Sam. He still wanted, kind of, maybe, yes, yes definitely--

John sat next to him and reached out to brush Sam's hair back from his face.

He kissed him lightly and Sam didn't even notice John's hand on his thigh.

It was fucking him over, sort of, and Sam forgot who he was when he smashed his face against John and pushed him down with all his force.  
John stumbled and fell and he looked up at Sam and he laughed and his mouth formed into a grin and Sam, Sam, Sam smiled too, because

he couldn't help it.

John brought Sam down to meet him and Sam was criss-crossing between wow okay, alright, yes and dear god in heaven whom Sam doesn't believe in, why is this happening?

And maybe then would have been the time to ask if he even is bi or what this is, he knew John wasn't asking himself that, because if the word love means what he thinks it does, John's made his mind up years ago.  
They have sex, it's not perfect but it's real and Sam doesn't know what to really make of the fact that John had his hand on his bits and Sam had his on his. Sam wouldn't call it making love, but it was very intimate. They were leaning onto each other and were so very close and it probably was what Sam needed instead of just- whatever the alternative would have been.  
After John comes he clings onto Sam and breathes into Sam's ear so loud it echoes and he doesn't move until the messy feeling becomes unbearable.

He doesn't say _love_ now, but Sam can hear that John begins to say it, his mouth begins to form the words but they never become sounds

That's fine for now, since Sam wouldn't like to talk about it now anyway.

"Do you want me to come by the office tomorrow?" John asks and Sam tenses.

"No." Sam says and he won't qualify it, he won't explain how he just needs to get through tomorrow by himself.

John's hand absent-mindedly rubs Sam's hip. Sam hears Ella's faint whine from behind his door. Sam finds some amount of comfort in the fact that he thinks it's going to happen again.

_Over and over again. We can't help ourselves._

And as it happens some forty-eight hours later Sam is counting the hours he has to be on John's side, counting the days till he can leave it behind.


End file.
